Branch Manager

Overview

Local branches are run by local college students looking for paid summer management experience. Student Painters allows these students to gain real-life business experience before they even graduate. This process creates hundreds of student summer jobs in the field of management and marketing every summer. We are currently looking for branch managers for the 2022 season to join our team. No experience needed and training is provided.

Qualifications

Our simple qualifications are as follows:

You’re a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year, full-time student in good standing with your college/university You intend to graduate in 1-5 years You’re ready to work hard You own a vehicle OR have reliable access to a vehicle throughout the summer

Also note that physical strength is not a requirement for this position. We can always hire muscle - we want you whether or not you can lift a 70-pound ladder!

If you meet the above qualifications and expectations, we bet you’ll be an invaluable asset to our team.

Roles and Responsibilities

It’s critical to understand that this is a very wide-ranging position, and that you’ll be expected to have a high level of comfort wearing many different hats throughout your tenure. If one of these excites you more than others, great! You can step up and specialize in that role within your branch. However, you should still be comfortable being an active participant in every one of these divisions. We’ve identified the five “core” divisions into which most of these responsibilities can be categorized and will provide some details on them below.

Operations: Without seamless operations, our product is not viable. As a branch manager, you’ll be responsible for working with our HQ team to plan, order, and coordinate things like necessary equipment, paint, employee uniforms and the like. Branch managers will also be tasked with identifying and building relationships with local vendors with whom we will partner for our services (Sherwin Williams, Home Depot, etc.)

Marketing: Branch managers will have enormous leeway in how we market our services. Successful methods employed in the past include mass door to door campaigns, hiring sales reps, intensive social media marketing, speaking in local community meetings, etc. We want to be everywhere. The HQ team will help you design these plans and procure any supplies you may need, but you’ll be fully responsible for implementing them!

Human Resources: One of the unique features of Student Painters’ business model is our commitment to hiring only student labor to conduct our operations. As you can imagine, carrying out the tasks laid out above takes significant manpower, and to fill those needs, we look to the local community. Workers will be expected to work full-time hours the entirety of the summer. Branch Managers will be responsible for recruiting, hiring, and managing student workers. Building relationships with dependable workers is critical for our operational success and managing them closely to keep labor costs low is critical for our financial success. This is an opportunity to gain serious HR and management experience.

Customer Relations: We serve a high-end, demanding clientele who has come to expect only the best in customer service … and we like it that way. Our services are not cheap, and in order to justify our prices, our relationships with our customers have to be extraordinarily strong. We don’t charge fees, we make scheduling and rescheduling extremely easy, and we say “yes” to any reasonable request we get. We respond to emails and phone calls immediately and will never leave a customer waiting for a response. Upon joining us as a branch manager you’ll receive thorough customer service training and will quickly be responsible for taking the lead in your community.

Finance: While a lot of the bigger-picture finances are handled by the HQ team, we’ll be creating a budget for your branch each season. You’ll be responsible for making sure our expenses stay within budget and making careful decisions at the margin will be key to making sure this happens. We incentivize this further by tying a part of each Branch Manager’s compensation to our net income in his or her neighborhood.

Our Products

The way our products work is simple: a homeowner signs up with you and chooses a day and/or time slot they would like their services delivered. The days and slots we have available are from May 16 to August 18, 2022.

We offer three primary products:

Exterior Painting: This is what we are known for. In this service, we first use our home measurement software to provide detailed measurements to our customers in order to give them the best possible price. Once all the necessary paperwork is completed and down payment is collected, they will be put onto the summer schedule and be given access to our platform for color selection. We then perform the services taking anywhere from 1-4 days to complete. These jobs will be performed with the paint crew. Interior Painting: A similar process to exterior painting, except on the interior of our customers’ homes. We provide a standard price per room per coat, barring any unforeseen circumstances. The customer signs their contract, is put on the schedule, and is given access to our color selection platform. Interior services take anywhere from 1-4 days to complete. These jobs will be performed with the paint crew. Pressure Washing: We pressure wash exterior surfaces prior to painting as standard paint preparation. However, we also offer standalone pressure washing services. A successful pressure washing program turns a good branch to a great branch. Our most popular service is full home pressure washing which includes the entire exterior of the home in addition to any driveway, sidewalk or other concrete/brick surfaces on the property. These jobs will be completed by separate employees that specialize in pressure washing.

Time Commitment and Expectations

The rhythm of the Student Painters year is one of the most complex aspects of this business, and there are positives and negatives when it comes to the commitment. To put it simply, the experience is very intense from May 16 to August 18, 2022. For the vast majority of the year, we do not ask much from you in terms of time and energy - but when operations seasons roll around, we need you to be ready to rise to the occasion.

In terms of expectations, we want to be very clear here as well: We expect you to be exceptional. Do you have to be a business major or a quant student? Nope. Do you have to profess a lifelong fascination with entrepreneurship? Nope again. Do you have to have extensive work experience and a dozen internships under your belt for us to bring you on? Absolutely not.

Student Painters’ most successful branch managers are all over the board when it comes to their majors, backgrounds, interests, and passions. The common thread among them, however, is a ridiculous work ethic, a willingness to embrace all the unknowns that come with running business operations, and a commitment to our philosophy and our product. They want to do something truly unique during their college tenures and are willing to make a few sacrifices to make that a reality.

Reward Trip: Student Painters will be traveling to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico during Labor Day Weekend 2022 departing Friday September 2, 2022, and returning Monday September 5, 2022. Every branch manager will be invited to join us as we stay at the Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort and Spa. Flights, accommodations, and meals will all be provided by Student Painters. This trip serves as a celebration of all the hard work and dedication during the season.